This week, I’m going to be talking about a piece of (in my opinion) classic television: Grey’s Anatomy. This show is a little different than the ones I’ve discussed previously, a more serious themed and less specific audience show. However, this is one of the longest running TV shows I’ve ever seen. Grey’s Anatomy premiered in 2005, as I was turning 1 year old, and is currently on its 19th season. There are an insane number of Grey’s Anatomy episodes, and I’ve seen a little under 3/4 of them.

I first watched Grey’s Anatomy when I was in middle school, as tons of my friends recommended it and it already had a massive audience worldwide. It was seen as a more mature and dramatic show to me at the time, and was so easy to binge: with 12 seasons out on Netflix when I first started watching. The first 5 seasons is peak hospital drama television, and gives me so much nostalgia and comfort when I rewatch it. Doctors facing bizarre medical emergencies while also battling the drama of dating within one hospital made for such entertaining television. I could sit down and watch episode after episode without getting bored at all, and even rewatched the first 6 seasons during Covid lockdown in 2 weeks.

Throughout Grey’s Anatomy’s 19 season ongoing run, there have been some wild storylines. There were many tragedies throughout the show that made it seem like the characters could just not catch a single break. Watching Grey’s Anatomy will take years off your life, and some episodes still make me cry no matter how many times I’ve seen them. Every fan knows the emotional rollercoaster that is this show, with so many deaths, losses, accidents, betrayals, and tragedies. Even the show runners have acknowledged how much the characters have suffered under their direction.

Some storylines that have stuck out to me in Grey’s Anatomy include a massive ferry crash, with then led to the main character, Meredith, drowning in the water and fighting for her life. The next season, the doctors find themselves in an extreme situation when a patient has a literal bomb in their chest cavity. Another character fell in love with a cancer patient, who then died at their hands when they interfered with their treatment in order to get on a transplant list. The list of tragedies goes on, and on, and on.

One of the main characters in the first 6 seasons met his end after he left to join the military, but was immediately struck by a bus after saving a woman. He is then brought to the very hospital he used to work at, but is unrecognizable from the trauma. Eventually, he is able to communicate who he is to his friends through tracing on someones had, and the characters must deal with his subsequent death right in front of them. They literally cannot catch a break.

Though this show put me through much emotional stress while watching, it has so much heart and nostalgia that make it so amazing. Highly recommend this show to anyone that loves to binge watch!